Building a global life plan isn’t just about where you want to live—it’s about designing the kind of life you want to lead. In this episode, we sit down with Gail Warrior, former Mobil Oil executive, serial entrepreneur, and founder of Global Citizen Consulting, to talk about how she went from modular construction mogul to international wellness advocate. Gail shares how she navigated career pivots, built and sold multiple businesses—including CASPR Technologies—and how her father’s early passing shaped her drive to live fully now, not later. From building boardrooms to boundaries, she breaks down what it really means to live well, lead boldly, and create a life with intention—across borders.
Music courtesy of Dealer’s Choice Sound Recordings, Inc.
Music artist: djezi
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Boss Women Build Boundaries, Wealth, And A Global Life Plan With Gail Warrior
We had an awesome conversation with Gail Warrior. Before we get into this, we are going to talk about mentorship because Angela, I went to the hair salon, as you can tell.
I was going to say it’s flying.
Thank you very much. I like my crochet. I walked in and there was this young woman sitting in the chair and she was holding the flyer for our book, THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine. I made these flyers and I put them up at the hair salon just in the event that someone would see them and pick it up.
Come to find out this young woman was graduating from medical school literally the next day. She shared that her boyfriend had broken up with her and had come from a distant place to break up with her like three days before her medical school graduation. She mentioned that her match experience had not been that great and that she had to scramble to identify a position, which she did. Thank God.
Matching for residency training.
She did not match in the residency that she had envisioned matching in and I believe her 30th birthday was somewhere around there, too. There were all these things at once and I listened. I looked at her and said, “This is going to be okay. This feels like the worst thing possible.” I shared how I thought my life was going to be a little bit different in Seattle and that didn’t quite pan out.
You feel as if the weight of the world is on top of you but I felt good because I felt like I was at the right place at the right time to help bolster this young woman as she moves into the next part of her life. Tell me are there any times where someone said something to you or you were able to be at the right pivotal place for someone to support them?
Yes, but I’m going to comment on what you just did. Number one, you were open but you also put things in place for that conversation to happen. That was being proactive. You’ve done something good and written a book to help others but you’re still trying to help others in having that information readily available for somebody. She picks it up and you walk in but then she has to be open to the conversation.
Some people are closed and can’t accept any conversation about life and what’s going on. Good for you and good for her. That’s a beautiful story. For me, in terms of mentors, I don’t believe I have ever necessarily sought out a mentor like I would recommend that my kids do or young people do. I certainly have blamed so many people in my life, men and women in medicine and outside of medicine.
What I reflect back on when I was in residency, I remember the first having mentors and that’s because I was pregnant in residency and having my first child. I luckily had, in residency, had two female OBGYNs that had kids. One was having hers soon after me but they were just reassuring, like, “This is going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. You’ll work it out. You’ll figure it out. You might not have all the answers now. You will feel overwhelmed but you will have to set boundaries in terms of your life.” I didn’t learn about setting boundaries in terms of how much work and how I could do it. Some of it was just self-taught, unfortunately.
Trial and error.
Another mentor was Dr. Rhonda Maddox, when we first entered into Boss Leap or the thoughts around Boss Leap. At that time, we didn’t even have Boss Leap show. We were talking about our book, the Game Plan and I was starting my business in healthcare or health style rather for coaching and speaking. She was very much an advocate of selling your product or selling yourself so that people know what you have to offer.
If you have something that is meaningful and you feel like you could share something powerful with other people. People are not just going to hear about it by word of mouth just because you are talking to me. You have to be able to market yourself and sell that. That was interesting. I consider her a mentor. I don’t know if that answered your question but those are the thoughts that come to mind for me.
To say that you were a resident, an OBGYN resident and you were pregnant. That’s more than a notion. I’m glad that you were in an environment that they said, “You’re going to figure this out.” Not all programs are particularly supportive, especially when we trained 25 years ago.
I will add that, I was intrigued by Gail Warrior, our guests who we’ll introduce in a moment, who is a woman with many accomplishments. She spoke about a mentor early on in her career. It’s just incumbent upon us to remember that there are people that are maybe a step ahead of us. We have to seek the information and not be timid. If there’s something that you want to achieve, you’ve got to be vocal and ask for that or just to observe and listen.
She talked about people do business with people that they know, like, and trust. We will know more from Gail Warrior.
I would love to just let the audience know the background of Gail Warrior who is a an accountant by training. She was an executive with Mobil oil and serial entrepreneur and now an expat with so much advice for people that are interested in exploring a life outside in global traveling. Without further ado, we’ll give you Gail.
We are back and so excited to have Gail Warrior as our guest. As we mentioned in the intro, she is a woman that has so many accomplishments at such a young age. We didn’t know how to devise our questions because there’s so much that we want to know but we always like to start in the beginning, Gail just by welcoming you but getting to know a little bit about who you were growing up. Maybe what life was like and what you wanted to be.
Early Influences: From Family Dinners To Future Aspirations
First of all, Angela and Sylvia, thank you so much for having me on. I’m looking forward to this conversation. That’s an interesting question, who was I growing up and who did I want to be? I came from a family of one entrepreneur and one person who worked in Corporate America My dad started off as a schoolteacher before I was born then worked his way into mass mutual selling insurance and became one of the first independent African-American insurance agent in Dallas.
Give us a time frame because that must have been in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
You’re exactly right. Most of the successful African-American entrepreneurs, he had their life insurance or health insurance or business insurance. He took care of all of all of their needs, so I grew up in that environment. My mom, talk about ‘60s and ‘70s, she worked in Corporate HR at Texas Instruments. You can imagine some of the dinner conversations. At dinner, she would always talk about, “I saved TI from another lawsuit. They just don’t even realize,” because she handles all the EEOC claims. People that would want to come in and sue Texas Instruments over whatever.
She talked many employees off the ledge of going that going down that road so. Dinner conversation in our house was always very interesting. I grew up on a street called Marchand Road in Dallas. Marchand Road was a street of entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors and lawyers that were all African-American. That was my bubble. That street was contained in far North Dallas. It was a great street to grow up on and then I went to school. I took the bus to school to Skyline. ‘86 Raiders, I have to give.
Growing up, I wanted to be a CPA. I wasn’t thinking about entrepreneurship. I worked in my dad’s company in the summer times and so I thought my path was going to be certified public accountant. I went to school and majored in accounting. I went to an HBCU, Clark Atlanta University and came back home. I came back home mainly because my dad had fallen ill. He developed cancer and passed at a very early age. That track of wanting to set for the Becker exam to get certified and it didn’t seem to be as important anymore. I wanted to be close to home and started working at Mobil Oil.
HBCU Experience: Finding Confidence And Identity At Clark Atlanta
You just gave us a lot in that opening. I just want to take a few steps back. You mentioned that you went to Clark Atlanta University. Can you tell us about your experience at an HBCU and how that helped to guide your career going forward?
Without a doubt. Before Skyline, so growing up in North Dallas and even though I lived on Marchand, where everyone was African-American. Everyone in the neighborhood around us didn’t look like me. In elementary school and junior high school, I had very few friends that look like me.
Was there an integration or bussing? How was that? I’m from Los Angeles.
There was integration but the public schools in North Dallas at that time were primarily the people who lived in that neighborhood. During that time, it was primarily White or maybe a few Hispanic but primarily Caucasian and a speckling of African-Americans. That was my upbringing until I got to Skyline but elementary school. In elementary school, I went to a TAG program and I started bussing.
At what program?
Talented and gifted and I started being bused then I realized that there was this divide because I didn’t know the difference. I was just a kid. By the time I got into junior high, I felt like I was being pulled to make a choice of which what set of friends that I wanted to have. I was like, “What difference does it make?” Fast forward, when I went to an HBCU, I met amazing people that look like me from the West Coast and the East Coast. There was a DC Metroplex Club, LA Club and a Texas Club. There was all of these amazing, super smart people that were Black and I was like, “I’ve gone to the Mecca.”
I remember when I came home for Thanksgiving the first semester. My mom says to me, “You’ve changed. There’s something different about you. I think what it was is just being a little bit more confident in myself and who I am as an African-American woman. I would never exchange my experience at an HBCU for anything in the world. It shaped and developed me to who I am.
We hear that thread throughout a lot of our interviews and appreciate that perspective. What I’m hearing so far are positive inputs in your life. If you could go back to your twenty-year-old self, I’m not sure that you have any advice because it sounds like you had a great trajectory from the onset but do you have any? Maybe one piece of advice that you give that twenty-year-old Gail.
I thought about that question earlier and I would say, don’t be as naïve, as I think I was. When I was at Mobil, I had great people that I worked with. I worked with a lot of women of all nationalities. My boss was a female and I thought that this is how corporate is. This is how working in Corporate America. Everyone got along and there was always some, what I call that water cooler conversation or office politics. I didn’t feel, particularly at an HBCU and I didn’t feel when I worked at Mobil, a lot of discrimination. I would say when I started my first business, that’s when it was like, “Whoa.”
When you’re growing up in a home and your dad is an entrepreneur. I heard a little bit of it in the background from my mom who worked with EEOC claims at Texas Instruments but I would tell my twenty-year-old self that the life that you had growing up is an anomaly and not the norm. Be prepared for what’s to come.
The life that you had growing up is an anomaly and not the norm. Be prepared for what’s to come. Share on XPivotal Career Shift: From Oil Executive To Entrepreneurial Leap
You prompted my next question. Anyway, you went from a senior accountant at Mobil Oil and then went into entrepreneurship. Was there a pivotal experience that shifted your idea into going into entrepreneurship?
There was. Mobil had merged with Exxon at the time and my position was relocating to Houston. I had a choice of taking a great package or moving to a very more humid city than Dallas. I thought Dallas is home and I’m staying right here, so I took the package. It’s interesting because what I thought I was going to do was to start owning franchises, which people that do that is a great career path. I remember having dinner with a mentor of mine and the franchise that I was looking into Smoothie King. I love Smoothie King.
I’m at dinner with he and his wife and he says, “Why would you want to make your money one smoothie at a time?” I thought, “Wow.” When you think about the cost of a smoothie and what you’re selling it for, you’d have to sell a whole lot of smoothies to make a living. You’d have to have more than one Smoothie King at a time. I thought, “You’re right. I don’t think I want to do that.” An opportunity presented itself. He and his wife ran a modular manufacturing facility. We had a conversation about the fact that no one at that time, so this is late ‘90s, was selling modular construction to the Federal Government.
Navigating The World Of Modular Construction: Building From The Ground Up
I’m not an engineer at any stretch of the imagination. What exactly is modular construction? I think mobile homes.
I give people the visual of if you grew up in the ‘70 or ‘80s in public school. At some point in time, you probably had a class in a portable building. Portables are a type of modular building but when you make them permanent, so I did a lot of work with the US Army Corps of engineers. We built modular barracks, multi-story modular barracks. Imagine taking a portable building with much higher quality putting them together and then stacking them like Legos and then putting a real roofing system and doing all of your MEP construction at the bottom. You put your facade on the outside and voila. You’ve got a modular building.
Did anything about construction or modular buildings? How did you have the internal confidence to say, “I can do this?”
While I was on Mobil, I did my Masters and I took a couple of construction management courses. I knew a little bit but in in regards to specifically manufacturing and the modular manufacturing, everything I learned, I learned boots on the ground. For almost a year that we started the business, we worked out of their office. We were working with another company who was 8A certified.
What certified?
8A, so the 8A certification is a certification through the SBA or the Small Business Administration. It’s an incubator program to help small businesses to grow, develop, and learn how to do business, not only with the Federal Government but just learn about the art and process of contracting and the whole RFP process. Initially, we were working with that company in their sales and marketing arm to help them find more contracts that were modular.
I wasn’t building at the beginning myself. They ended up what you would term graduating early out of the program, meaning that they weren’t meeting the requirements by the SBA to stay in the program. I decided, “We should get in the risk game. I can do this.” I had been learning on the ground for about three years at that point and I thought, “I got this.” I’ve been sitting in the office of their manufacturing and seeing how everything was being built and I thought easy-peasy, so I thought.
Funding Challenges & Venture Capital Breakthrough
It’s amazing what you did because I remember following you back then. I ran into you at some point where our kids were little. You told me a little bit about it and it was just as odd then as I am now about what you were doing at that point in time because I had no clue. How do you make that business transition then as not knowing into this huge, wildly successful business that you can then sell? What does that process like?
A lot of sleepless nights. There are moments, literally, looking back because we were slowly adding more employees. At the height of the company, we had over 50 employees. We had offices in in Dallas and then also in two other states. I also decided to go a little bit more vertical and we acquired a modular manufacturing facility because one of the challenges when you build modular, if you have a project that’s going up in, say, California. If your manufacturing facility is on the East Coast, that’s a lot of transportation costs that you have to transport that building.
It was slowly and gradually. There were days where I was literally, I would say, robbing Peter to pay Paul not knowing if we were going be able to make payroll. I remember my first office when we moved out. We’re officing with the manufacturer and moved into a tiny office. We didn’t have a conference room, so we had about four people working for us and our boardroom was literally in the middle of the floor. Everyone would take their chair and we’d pull it around in the circle but one of the things that I’ve relied heavily on is some of the processes and procedures that I learned not only from my dad but also for Mobil.
I always had an employee handbook even when we just had a few people. I always made sure that we had a creed that we followed through. I always believed and I still believe that if someone calls you, you should call them back or email them back. Even if you tell them, “I don’t have an answer for you. Give me a minute. I just want you to know I’ve gotten your message. I’ve gotten your call. I’ll get back to you.” Customer service goes a very long way and that’s one of the things that in a lot of ways is missing in the world. The good quality, communication and customer service.
When we started doing much larger projects, the issue was bonding. I remember the first project that we had. When you do a much larger project, the customer or the owner wants to make sure that if you go belly up, then there’s a safeguard. I was banking at the time with a bank. I won’t name who that bank is. I don’t bank with them anymore. I’ve been banking with them for about 5 or 6 years. We’ve been growing slowly and I had an opportunity to do a much larger project. It was our first. It was like a $20 million project and I needed some financing. I went to this bank that I had always been very successful with and they said no.
It’s because you’re woman. I’m just going to say it, “It’s because you’re a Black woman.” They say you didn’t have enough time in the industry and all the usual stuff.
All of all of the above but this is a government project. We had asked for certain projects with the government. If you ask, you have to file a lot of paperwork for them to pay you seed money upfront to get mobilized and get started then they would do that. We had already gone through that process. We’re waiting for that to happen and the bank said, “No, we can’t help you.” Here I am thinking.
Please tell me you took all your money out that day. Withdrew all your money.
I did. The funny part to that, my son, Corey, at the time, he was little. I remember taking him into the bank and when they told us no, Corey said, “Bye-bye.” I said, “That’s exactly what we’re doing with all of our accounts.”
That’s what you do.
I started the process of trying to find venture capital.
We know that most VC money goes to, I would say men and probably Caucasian men or maybe South Asian men, at least in Silicon Valley. How would you, as a Black woman in Dallas get VC money?
Remember I was telling you what I would tell my twenty-year-old self about not being so naïve? This is one of the lessons because here I am thinking I’m successful. My balance sheet was decent. My income statement had been pretty consistent over time and I thought I’ve got a project and know that we’re going to be successful. We’ve been successful before. This one was a joint venture that we had teamed up with a larger GC firm. Everything should have just fallen into place but it wasn’t.
It’s like, why isn’t it? I remember a dear friend had told me, fast forward, and I’ll come back to Warrior Construction when I had my other business, CASPR. She had a business as well and she told me when she was trying to raise capital, she would do pitch after pitch. She kept being denied and someone finally told her, a White guy, because she wanted him to look at her pitch. He told her, “I don’t need to look at your pitch. I know it’s solid. I know it’s great. Your pitch is not the problem. You’re pitching it that’s why.”
I didn’t know at the time that I was the problem. God always sends angels right at the perfect time. I found a woman who’s still a very dear friend of mine and she introduced me to another woman by the name of Whitney Johns Martin. Whitney at the time, she and a few other ladies had formed a company called Texas Women’s Venture Fund in New Orleans.
Was this is in the ‘90s?
This was in early 2000s at this point. Texas Women’s Venture fund were only funding and supporting women led and women owned businesses. They had literally just finished a round of funding for another company. They were getting ready to go out and look for other companies to be able to support. Here I am. Marilyn introduced me to Whitney and we went through the process and the rest is history.
The Power Of Relationships & Mentorship: Building A Strong Network
What I’m hearing is the importance of relationships and having both mentors, advocates and people that you can call within your industry and outside of your industry. Could you talk about the importance of that?
I would tell you that, at the time, I was a member of the Minority Business Council, the Women’s Business Council, and NAVO and I sat on the board of Dallas Regional Chamber, and through all of those organizations and even more. The importance of creating relationships of people that you can pick up the phone and call, it goes a long way. I had a conversation with my husband. He was trying to solve a problem and I said, “Why don’t you call this person over here? You’ve known them for years. They’ll probably have some contacts.” It’s all about relationships.
I remember a woman in the Women’s Business Council told me that people do business with people that they know, like and trust. If someone knows you, like you and feel that they can trust you, if you pick up the phone and call them, they’re more than happy to make an introduction or connect you to whatever it is that you need. I was very fortunate to have some great contacts in my life.
People do business with people that they know, like, and trust. Share on XWhat an amazing story. You built the company and then you got the funding. At what point did you move to? I want to talk about so much more that you’ve done. I know you’ve launched Warrior Elements, which was a luxury brand and then you mentioned CASPR. Can you tell us how those transitions transpired?
When I started Warrior Elements, I was looking for something. While I love construction and was very good about it, it wasn’t something that I was passionate about. I wanted to find something where I could marry the two of these. I’m a certified trainer through Cooper Robot Center. I’m a health coach through Integrative Nutrition. I’ve done marathons and fitness competitions that were natural and I was seeing women that were in leadership positions that were sacrificing taking care of themselves for the company that they work for or their family.
If we don’t take care of ourselves first then we can’t be there for everyone else. As doctors, you know this already and you’ve probably told this to several of your patients. I would tell my clients, “You have to take care of your body now so that when we get older, it will take care of you later.” I will give the example of a car. We’re not going to run our car. Now, we’ve got electric.
If we don’t take care of ourselves first, then we can’t be there for everyone else. Share on XWhether it’s electric or hybrid or the old-fashioned oil and gas, you’re not going to run that car over and over without doing a checkup, having the oil change, and putting gas in it every week. To me, gas is a fuel, the food that we put in our body, so junk in and junk out. I want it to be able to have a platform to show women that sometimes there’s a debate. Sometimes, people say you can have it all and sometimes people say you can’t have it all. You can have it all but you can’t have it all at once.
Balancing Success & Wellness: Prioritizing Self-Care Amidst Entrepreneurial Demands
What would you say or what do you say that women who are highly successful, marriage and children? How do you balance that and get the health part in as well? How do you prioritize that?
It’s a choice and there’s boundaries that you have to set for yourself. For example, when I was running my construction company. Corey, my son, was little. Let’s say my office is on one side of town, but home was at least without traffic 45 minutes away. There are times where if I had, let’s say, an RFP or request for proposal that needed to go out. I’m picking him up from school, which is school was near the office and I’m bringing him back to the office. I had a little corner set up where his toys and little table to do homework. We would stop at Boston Market.
I let him have the mac and cheese sometimes as long as he ate his green peas but we weren’t going to the McDonald’s. We weren’t going to get the fried chicken. We were going to get a healthy meal. We go into the office cafeteria and we’d sit down together and eat it as a family. He’d come back into my office and he do his homework or play games until I was finished. That’s a choice because I had to leave the house super early. My workouts then were typically at 5:30 in the morning. That was a choice.
It wasn’t a choice I always liked but I knew how important taking care of myself was. There were phone calls and conference calls. I typically would not do a conference call before 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM. If someone wanted me in front of them at 8:00 AM, they better have a good reason because there are so many other things that were important for me that I needed to do. To me, there is there’s a book, The Power of a Positive No. I learned to try to master how to say no but, in a way, where it wasn’t offending people or hurting people but it was just putting my needs and my family’s needs.
I was just talking to the client about this is it. If you do it yourself, then it gives permission for those around you to do it for themselves as well. In an interest of time, I want to talk about all these positive things you’ve done but I love the health. As a matter of fact, I do remember very keenly when I saw you again. We were just in passing when our kids were younger. You had your workout clothes on then and had come from a workout. She’s doing the things. Tell us what drew you to co-found CASPR Technologies and the healthcare technology field?
CASPR Technologies: From Idea To Healthcare Innovation
CASPR came along. I’m doing my thing working with women. I had my athletic line that I was selling an Equinox and Tutsis and some other local stores in Dallas. I’m just having a great life and then I met this incredible man. I thought I was never ever going to get married again. Been there, done that. I already checked the box. It was like living the single life and raising my son. We were good. I met this wonderful man. His name is Christophe, Dr. Suchy. He was in Dallas. A short version, he was from France, moved to Dallas from Spain.
We met and it was Super Bowl weekend and we hit it off. He was looking to move to Dallas. He just bought a company or acquired a company in Dallas and we started dating. I started learning about this technology that he’d been selling internationally for many years. The name of that company is ReSPR. It is an air and surface disinfecting technology. The more I got into it and learned more about it, I said, “Why aren’t you selling this to hospitals? Every hospital around the world should sell this technology.”
As doctors, you’ll appreciate this. I was looking at the number of HAIs that were hospitalized infections that were happening in the US every single year. Pre-COVID, it was over 75,000 a year, I believe and these are people that would pass away. That does not include people that might lose a limb or something. We have a friend that happened to who lives in California. I thought, “This technology is amazing. This helped hospitals reduce the number of HAIs that they have in the hospital.
We went around form CASPR. The funniest story is, it was birth on because I didn’t know what I wanted the name of the company to be, so we’re literally sitting around brainstorming on names and having a glass of wine or maybe two. It’s October 31st and CASPR was born literally. CASPR stands for Continuous Air and Service Pathogen Reduction.
We wanted to help hospitals to reduce HAIs. In order to do that, you can’t just go and sell something into a hospital. They want to know, “Show me your data. Show me your evidence-based science that this works.” We went through almost a year of doing a couple of pilots and two different hospitals to gather that date up.
What year was this?
We launched the company in 2017. We took about two years to do to gather data. We went to APIC Conference in 2019, Association Professionals of Infection Control. All of the nurses were like, “Where is this?” It’s continuous and no touch. They were like, “Where have you been?” We were getting ready to do a large pilot with a very large teaching hospital in LA in February-March of 2020.
Perfect timing. You can’t get in there at that point.
We couldn’t get into a hospital at that time. Here we were, ready but we couldn’t get into hospitals. I was like, “Now what?” We did a pivot and we had internal salespeople at that time. Our pivot was to a distribution model. We started partnering with HVAC companies in the US that were selling HVACs or maintenance to school systems, airports, restaurants, church, and mass transit. While we couldn’t get into hospitals, we could get everywhere else. We were deemed to be a business that was of necessity. We were able to fly to wherever and we started selling through distribution model.
Very interesting. Are you still in business?
CASPR was sold and acquired by our largest distributor in Louisiana. They’re still running CASPR. There’s a song Joy and Pain by Frankie Beverly. There are a lot of joys and there’s a little bit of pain I would say the biggest pain points for me in running CASPR. With CASPR, I was a CEO and Chairman of the Board. That was the first time I had a company where I had independent directors. Some of our independent directors were shareholders.
We had done a couple of raises. We had two shareholders that were on our board then we had another shareholder that we had selected. The hardest part for me was when I’m finishing up with my team, the board book because I had a board meeting the next day. We’re trying to get the board book out to all the directors.
One of my directors who was also shareholder call me up that afternoon and says, “I want to come by and talk to you for a little bit.” I said, “Sure. We’ll be here for a while. Come on by.” He came by right at 5:00. It was a short conversation and he gave me a letter. The letter said, in short, that he and a couple of the other shareholders had gotten together and wanted me to find a CEO and wanted me to resign as chair of the board and make that announcement at the board meeting the next morning.
That’s how that works.
Ambush.
If I resigned and also give up part of my share so that I would not own the majority of the company then the other shareholders that had basically been in cahoots with him would have given us all of the money. We were in the middle of getting ready to do another raise. They would then put in the money that we were seeking to raise under these conditions that I would basically bow out and leave the organization.
That’s a raid.
They tried. I spent the better part of that evening on phone calls with relationships of lawyers that I knew that get helped me figure out what the response was going to be at the board meeting. The next morning comes. I ran the board meeting as normal.
I know you had your best suit on. You are looking flawless.
I’m imagining suits now, Sylvia.
I ran the meeting. I’m at the end of the meeting and I said, “By the way, I need the rest of the board to know that I have received this letter. I’m in receipt of the letter. I’ve read it and I do not have a response that I’m going to give you but I had a retained a lawyer. We will be looking at this in further detail and I’ll get back to you.”
FAFO. They had completely underestimated you.
This is like a whole episode of suits. I’m loving it. Not for your pain but for your insight. Honestly, just being on the outside looking in, to me, it’s so many things in what you’ve said. It’s getting ready to always be ready. It’s Moxie and resilience. Honestly, I had to say Black excellence up close and personal right in their face. I’m loving your story. I would love to know how it ends but however you want to proceed.
In short, it ended I resigned as the CEO. I did not resign as a chairman of the board. I put together a committee where we did a search for a CEO that we wanted. Not their CEO. The person who was a shareholder and board of directors. We had him to resign because he was in one of the founder’s seats. As being in one of the two founder seats on the board, we asked him to resign from the board.
We ended up raising money through the hustle way, by hook or by crook but we found the money. It wasn’t everything that we needed at the time but we had an amazing CEO that I worked with very well and was still part of the day-to-day operations and cheering the boards until we were acquired by our distributor in Louisiana.
I love that story.
A question for you. if someone calls you with that same scenario now, what’s the best piece of advice that you can give them?
Be prepared. I can’t say listen to what people say but then also listen to what people don’t say. This didn’t happen overnight. You always have to be on your toes. As Black women, we’re always ready to be two steps ahead all the time because it’s just how we’re raised. We’re always having to block and tackle something somewhere, whether it’s in the office or at home.
In some ways, we’re used to that. When adversity comes our way, then the first thing that we do is say, “This has happened. How do I find a solution?” We don’t have the time nor the luxury to say, “Was it me?” Sit around and weep on the issue for days at a time. My first MO was, “This is how you got to play it and now I got to find the solution.”
You got to circle the wagon.
I knew I was not going to give up my company. That was a non-negotiable. One of the other things I would say is to know what your non-negotiables are.
Global Citizen Consulting: Designing Your International Lifestyle
Great advice. We could have two or more episodes but we want to honor your time and through all your wildly successful ventures that you’ve done and raising a family. I know now that you are in Panama and you have a business called Global Citizen Consulting. Sylvia and I both being travel buffs and her much more experienced than I would just love to hear about this venture and the readers would love to know about it. Can you give us more insight?
Global Citizen Consulting is about helping people create their global life’s plan. That became very important for me on hindsight. In the back of my mind, it’s started when my dad passed at an early age because he and my mom used to always talk about when they retire they were going to go here and go there. They did a few vacations, family vacation. There’s one that I remember they did to Hong Kong without kids
It’s the only vacation they did without kids but everything else was going to be after retirement. After retirement never came from my dad. That was the first influencer and the second influence was during COVID. Once the world started opening up again and we could come out of our homes. My husband I wanted to travel and I thought let’s just go to France. That’s where his family, his sister, nieces and nephews. He couldn’t go but I couldn’t. With US passport, I couldn’t get into France at that time.
If you remember when the world was opening, other countries because of how the US was dealing with COVID, other country were basically saying, “Your off limits. We don’t want you.” We said, “Where can we go?” We went to Mexico. We stays for a week that ended up turning into three weeks. Everyone was working via Zoom and that’s the only place and the only way you could work. Everyone’s working from home and kids were going to school from Zoom. I thought, “We have always talked about when we retired we are going to. Why are we waiting? Let’s figure out where that’s going to be now.”
Literally, he and I created a list of what was important for each of us then a Latin American country came to the top of the list. We came to Panama in October of 2020 just to check it out. We were there for a month and fell in love with everything about Panama. For me, it was the weather, the diversity of the people, and the ease of being able to get back to the US because I was so running my company. That wasn’t big difference from a time zone perspective. They use the US dollar. It’s a pretty stable economy. We’ve got the Panama Canal.
I think just Healthcare is pretty good in Panama as well.
Health care is amazing. We’ve got private healthcare and its way less than anything we’ve ever paid for in the US. I don’t have copay. I have the phone numbers of all of my doctors.
We’re not going to let that get out.
How difficult is citizenship? Are you a citizen duo?
I’m a resident of Panama. I also have two passports in other countries. The goal for us was to be able to create a global life plan so that we can travel and move about the country where and when we need it to. I also dolled all of my US investments overseas. I formed an LLC company and move my IRAs and my 401(k)s overseas where I have more self-directed or more control in how it’s invested.
Your business is showing others how to do this as well?
What we do is now we create global life plans for other people. We do a very detailed interview because everyone’s goals are different. We take everyone through a very detailed process of what it is that they’re looking for and we challenged them on some things because people say that they all want to go live in another country. What does that look like when you get down to the nitty gritty? Is this something you want to do for the rest of your life?
If that’s the case, then what are you going to do when you pass on and you have you either real estate or other investments that you need to pass on to family members? We help walk them through what state planning and inheritance taxes may look like. We have now a team of real estate experts, lawyers, and investment people around the globe that we worked with the help people put together their plans.
Gail, we are going to have to have you back to continue our conversation about a global life plan. I literally was talking with my financial planner about, am I going to live internationally? What does that look like? How do I do it? This is so timely, so thank you for sharing.
Gail’s Self-Care Routine & Wisdom For The Next Chapter
No doubt. We would love to ask you so many more questions. It’s so fascinating, but one of the things I have a feeling I know some of these things based on what you’ve already given us in terms of what’s important to you and your health. Can you give us a little bit of what your self-care and your wellness routine look like now at this point in life?
My self-care still includes workouts every morning. Not at 5:30 AM. It still includes eating very healthy. I probably have a little bit more wine than I did many years ago but I’m reaching that six-floor. I figure I’m okay but it also still includes drinking a ton of water daily. I can’t stress the importance enough of water. Particularly once we get to that, which everyone’s talking about now, the menopause age. It totally wreaked havoc on my body and all of it. I saw a video on Instagram. I can’t think of the woman who it was but she listed a thousand symptoms for menopause. She went through at least twenty and I thought, “I’m not crazy.”
We know so much more now and there’s so much more information readily available, so that’s right.
When I was younger, I would tell people take care of your body then so that it takes care of you now. Now that I’m at that now phase and hopefully, it will still at least another 20 or 30 years from now and if it’s God’s will. Strength training and weight training is still super important for me. Rating right and having time to rest, detox, and be thankful and grateful for life every single day.
Take care of your body then, so that it takes care of you now. Share on XI’m sure your natural ocean sounds as a post to my ocean sounds on my app. It basically help you in your regiments as well.
I get to see the ocean every day.
I can’t thank you enough.
Gail Warrior, thank you. Where can our readers find you for the global life planning?
They can set up a 45-minute consulting. The first consulting call is free and that’s on our website at GlobalCitizenConsult.com.
That’s a pleasure. Thank you for taking out time. You’re an inspiration. I know readers will love all aspects of your interview. We wish you well on your wellness retreat in Panama. Until we meet again. May you be well.
Same. Bye, ladies. Thank you.
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Reflections & Wisdom: Key Takeaways For Navigating Success & Life
Sylvia, what a gift. That was just packed with so much information, life and advice. I was just in awe of all the things that Gail Warrior has been able to accomplish at this stage in life and is now reaping the rewards of such hard work.
She is a superstar.
We were honored to have her. I’m curious to know what your takeaways were. I’m sure there are many.
There were so many jewels. Gail talked about the importance of relationships, the power of a positive no. I’m working on the positive part of my nos and as you heard just being a global citizen and helping people develop their own global life plans. Those were the things that resonated with me and I know are going to resonate with our readers. What about you?
I agree with everything you said. One thing that we talked about in the introduction, she had a mentor early or she spoke about the mentor early. That’s valuable when you’re trying to make career decisions or have that little bit of encouragement to do something other than what you’re doing. Maybe to give you some perspective there. We can’t undervalue that. She didn’t say this but what rang in my ears the entire time as she was talking is the concept of get ready to stay ready.
You don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.
She’s was a perfect example of that going from each step in her career. Even to the point where she’s talking about somebody wanting to take over her company. She was ready.
They try to take her stuff, Angela.
Ready for that. That resonated with me. The last thing because she is passionate about being healthy and taking care of yourself, is that your health is a choice. The things that you do is a choice and there are choices that we have to make on a daily basis and the concept of taking care of yourself now so your body will take care of you later. I love that. Anyway, it’s been a day and what a powerful interview. That will definitely carry me. I’m grateful.
As am I. May you be well.
May you be well. To our audience, if you would love, like and even subscribe, we’d appreciate it. Please feel free to give us feedback or any of advice or recommendations of what you’d like to read next. Thank you.
Important Links
- Gail Warrior on LinkedIn
- Gail Warrior on Instagram
- Mobil Oil
- CASPR
- The Power of a Positive No
- ReSPR
- Global Citizen Consulting
- THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine
About Gail Warrior
Gail Warrior is a certified executive health coach, a two-time founder and CEO with expertise in global regulated business, mergers & acquisitions, and succession planning. With a 30 year plus career in both construction and healthcare technology and having a profound dedication to health and wellness, Gail has built sustainable businesses driving revenue growth, innovation, building an inclusive company culture while prioritizing the holistic well-being of her teams. As an advocate for mental and physical health, she has navigated multiple business cycles, translated strategic visions into tangible results, managed risk, driven a strong balance sheet while focusing on company governance and diversity. This unique blend of industry experience and a commitment to a balanced, healthy lifestyle distinguishes Gail as a forward-thinking leader in global business and corporate wellness.
At CASPR Technologies and Warrior Construction, Gail has constituted best practice boards, developed business strategies, and operations, to drive revenue growth, positive margins, and profits. Gail excelled in capital fundraising, driving revenue, and leading mergers and acquisitions, all while managing change. At Warrior Construction she innovated cost and timeline savings in the construction industry by pioneering two-story and three-story modular barracks for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, an unprecedented achievement in military infrastructure. This required her to successfully alter the procurement process for the Federal government. Gail led geographically dispersed teams in multiple cities for projects $30 million plus, for clients including the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Dept of Defense, Veterans Administration, and multiple Universities. She also led the start-up CASPR Technologies through the tumultuous years of COVID and expanded the organization from a small salesforce of 4 people to a multi-state distribution channel in over 10 states.
Gail has spoken on numerous topics including “Growing and Scaling your Business”, “How to Determine if Debt Capital is Right for You,” and “Creating Work-Life Balance by Cultivating the Warrior Within” She has significant experience on non-profit and private boards, including the Center of Brain Health and CEO International, the Governance and Nominating Committee for IWF-Dallas. She served on the board of Young President’s Organization among many other noted business and civic organizations. As a continual learner, Gail completed an Executive Program at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, received her MBA from the University of Dallas, and a BA in Accounting from Clark Atlanta University. Beyond her professional endeavors, Gail’s life experiences as a minority woman in leadership, an inspirational community advocate, and a passionate wellness proponent enrich her perspective, making her an invaluable asset to any board.